Indian literature must be democratised, says Satchidanandan

Noted poet and critic K. Satchidanandan has harassed the relevance of “democratising” Indian literature to amplify suppressed voices and broaden the area for dissent.

He was talking whereas launching the ninetieth subject of the peer-reviewed journal Littcrit and delivering the fifteenth P.K. Rajan Memorial Lecture on ‘Indian Literature: A Case for Plurality’ right here. P.K. Rajan, the previous Vice-Chancellor of Kannur University, was the founding editor of the journal.

For whole democracy

Dr. Satchidanandan mentioned that the nation’s literary histories must symbolize its variety, religions, races, cultures and languages, and in addition “make the inaudible audible”. “Minorities, Dalits, tribals, the working class, peasants and the economically-backward sections must all be represented in literature as well as in every spheres of governance to achieve complete democracy. We cannot claim to have one as long as we have only the representatives of the upper classes who claim to speak for the subaltern,” he mentioned.

Taking a leaf out of the guide of Malayalam poet Vyloppilly Sreedhara Menon who famously referred to poets because the society’s ‘golden opposition’, he mentioned littérateurs have been obliged to talk about the failures, inadequacies, conflicts and contradictions inside the present system to attain a extra egalitarian and simply society.

According to Dr. Satchidanandan, plurality and variety have been being challenged by the governors of the nation to assemble a “monolithic India”.

All types of plurality, be it ethnic, spiritual, linguistic or cultural, confronted the intense hazard of standardisation, he mentioned.

“Literature is a space for democratic politics. Diversity becomes central to any idea of literature, particularly in the case of Indian literature, which consists of several regional and linguistic literatures. Various regional cultures that have all contributed to the Indian culture are being either marginalised or challenged now. Voices of dissent were being continually suppressed. This is a sign of growing authoritarianism in the country,” the poet lamented.

‘Futile attempts’

Pointing out that there have been a number of futile makes an attempt to deconstruct Indian literature, he mentioned it was one within the making. Similar to India as a complete, Indian literature “is a process, rather than a product.”

It may be created solely by invoking the a number of regional cultures, literatures and methods of expression. From the arduous job, a brand new family tree and cartography of literature would possibly lastly emerge, he added.

‘An endless forest’

Dr. Satchidanandan summed up the vastness of the multi-lingual Indian literature by analogising it to an infinite dense forest. Single-language cultures have been, contrastingly, akin to pruned gardens, in line with him.

Kerala University Pro-Vice Chancellor P.P. Ajayakumar, the chief editor of Littcrit, presided over the programme.